F!ng3R pR!n+s

I saw her. I looked at her.
She saw me; those eyes, I saw them looking at me. Did she recognize me?
Why I tried to hide myself from her?
What crime have I committed?  Or is it just that I am running away?   Running away from myself; running away from her; running away from everyone.
Why have I come here?   I shouldn't have.
 

I should have stayed right back there, in the dorm, where the world of warcraft is still a game.
Where guys and girls sweat themselves in gym, where ideas converge where people are scared and where love disguises into a monstrous committed alley, a blind alley.

What did I just say? Am I making any sense?

I am not good here, I don’t belong here. I belong where my machines are, where my code is.
Two years; I have lived by a code and I can’t throw it all in a momentary lapse. I need to get away from here.
 

I am feeling low already, blood palpating, rushing through all my veins, the pain of heart is the worst kind of drugs. Morphine, cocaine, hashish oh boy! I have tried everything. But this drug of heart makes me numb. I breathe heavy.

"Nani" I enter inside the house calling my Granny. It’ roughly been 5 hours since I am here; In my hometown, and I already feel like getting away from this place.
"I need to leave"
 

"But, you have just arrived here." she replies. I feel a hint of wincing and sadness in her voice.
"Yes. I just need to get that thing ...my leaves, there is this urgent work" I stutter, stammer and look at her. I have always been good at lying, super good I must say. But there is always one person in this world with whom you can’t be dishonest. For me, it’s her.

 
I look at her face turning pale blue, sadness visible. One thing she has realized over the years though is to accept my words freely and never bother forcing me, she knows I won’t listen.

 I pack my bags and go to washroom; turning on the tap I listen to water whooshing.

 
I look into the mirror, I see a different image; a portrait of a different guy, He is clean shaven; he has almost zero facial hair. His face muscles glow like a spear fish, cheekbones perfectly in place. 
His hair, neatly ruffled.
I walk back a little and spot his perfect biceps, his broad shoulders, he is smiling, he really is, even though I am not.
I see his eyes, clean as lake water, deep, the number of girls drowned only in them.
I splash water on my face, and I see him get wet, his hair curls, shining.
I touch my hair, I am losing, I have lost them, I am getting bald from the side.
Closing my eyes and opening them again, makes the mirror in front of me stutter, thunder; as if some butterfly effect taking place, I hear noises, screeching echoes, my ears bursting with the sound.

 
I close my eyes again and I see that handsome guy from mirror walking in his father’s bedroom and I see him wearing a sherwani. in the background there are people laughing, and he walks in the bedroom and he sees those eyes; those exact eyes; those light blue eyes look at him there is no mercy in them, she is on top of one guy, "Rahul" he screams, "I am sorry , it’s just…"

Next, it’s not clearly visible, between the dwindling light I spot that guy lay broken; angered and crashing a mirror.
 

I do the same; feeling the blood on my fingers.
 

When the mirror is broken I look down upon the pieces, and I see the guy in them, he looks familiar, he looks old in some broken pieces, he looks young in some.
He looks exactly like me, albeit two years ago.

This was yesterday, or today, I don’t know, I don’t remember. All I remember now, all I can see now is  Its 1 am, and my Nani always says , when its 1 am, just go to sleep, nothing good happens after 1 am, but oh so sweet Nani, how do I make you understand, everything good happens after 1 am in the world I live in. It’s in every hacker’s genes to stay awake and alive after 1 am. Like how M@dR1 would put it “The first rule of being a hacker is, you don’t sleep”

I would try and sleep, not sleep, try to sleep, but today, it’s not possible. Today it’s the first major tasked linked to next subsequent ones.

“We will call it butterfly effect” thundered M@dR1 once, “A small set of events, would lead to another small set of events… And these events when combined together, will give birth to a chain; a chain of destruction; mass destruction. We will bring the change with the help of this chain”

We have been assigned projects. Projects are nothing but people and their projections.

Koyal Chawla. That’s the name; IT security analyst working in NCL (National chemical Laboratory), Interesting.

I never asked M@dR1 what he wanted from her, but then nobody asked, and those whom I heard asking, disappeared mysteriously.

I Google that name and I find her everywhere. Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin. Hacking her was easy.

Her email id was all over the world and password, well, it was an easy one to guess. Sometimes, you don’t need any tools or any codes, algorithms, you just need some social engineering skills and you have it.

Gmail has given us a best way to hack people by introducing “Forgot my password” link.

Her security question “what is my dog’s name?” 

A quick stalking of her Instagram account and her dog’s name was shouting to me, calling to me “Cookie, cookie, cookie” 

Once in her Gmail account, rests of the things were easy, people connect their accounts everywhere and to everything.

But there is a limitation when it comes to virtual world hacks; it only gives you the information people want you to pursue. We needed more; we needed her retina scan and her finger prints.

I held in my hand a 200 page document containing every details of Koyal Chawla, where she lives, where her parents live, what are her office timings, what are her walk timings, what’s her favorite food, hell even who is her favorite Game of Thrones character.

But all this information counts to nothing, you can basically hack people for fun, their data, their routine, even their vehicle, but you cannot exploit the things which are hidden deep inside, you cannot exploit their darkest secrets their deepest vulnerabilities , you cannot recreate their physical appearance.

I possessed data which will help in getting what we wanted though, and I knew just a guy who would help us in getting what we wanted.

S@M Speaks..

I look at her, swirling her coffee with a spoon.

I watch her as she takes a sip of it and how it leaves a little of froth on her upper lip.

And just at that moment our eyes meet as she watches a sly grin forming on my face.

She raises her eye brow questioningly, and the next thing I know, I am wiping off the froth from her upper lip 

with my thumb, the touch of her luscious lip giving me goose bumps. 

Two months; people say that’s all it takes for you to fall in love with someone. It took me just 2 meetings in 2 days to know I was in love with her. Truly, madly, deeply.

Today, its 2 months since we met, and every day, every hour I have spent thinking about her.

I spot her exquisite smile no sooner I am done wiping the froth off.  “Sorry” she says and grins cutely.

I see a dimple forming on her right cheek, and I swear to god, I want to be miniature and jump and drown in that dimple; stay there forever. 

Today, we are on our second date, and I am not speaking anything, just watching her, observing her, letting things unfold the way they want to be, lest I am afraid, I will speak the truth, truth which will have consequences, consequences which will lead to departure, departure of her , I cannot withstand.

I remember our first meeting, in a gym. I joined only for her. John had enrolled me, had got my schedule fixed. The first time I saw her, she was doing abs, not that she needed any exercise, her stomach was flat like a plateau. How I knew her? Well, just because John knew her.

The first time she saw me, I was staring at her, trying to fixate my hands on whatever dumb bells I could find. Not to mention I got my hand on 3 pound pink dumb bells and became a laughing stock when trainer asked me what the hell I was doing? That was how we first met.

She smirked; smirking wasn’t really her forte, her angelic face was made to smile all the time, like all the time.

Over the period of 1 week, we became closer, I enrolled for her yoga batch, she was an assistant trainer.

And since the main trainer was out for few weeks, she was taking classes, the twist and turns I did for her, I don’t want to remember.

She was a goddess when it came to maintaining her body, that was such a turn on- a girl taking proper care of her body and maintaining her fitness, I was never into it, but one session she gave a tremendous talks on benefits of it all, after that she raised an eyebrow at me, needless to say she had me at her raised eyebrow.

But the “data” which I had of her favorite songs, her favorite books was pretty much helpful, as it got our conversations going.

She was a fitness freak, I was a sloth, but within 1 month I was at least presentably fit. I got my courage 2 weeks back and asked her out for coffee, an offer which she couldn’t refuse, since then, we are pretty much in-separable. Its only our second date but the phone calls, text messages are in plenty. I haven’t told her that 

 I love her, I cannot tell her that, I cannot admit my feelings, it’s a lie, it’s a trap, that’s what it is, it’s a mission, it’s a project, that’s what it is, my mind keeps telling me, John is pressurizing me to get the data he needs , a finger print will be too easy to get, retina scan, can be done, using the customized camera which he has given me, but somehow , I don’t want to do it, somehow I want to delay everything, somehow I want to be with her, somehow.

The thought of coming clean with her has appeared in my mind often, but I am afraid she is going to get hurt, afraid, she is going to walk away from me, afraid of sabotaging the whole project of John, which apparently is his ambitious and biggest project yet, he is upto something, they are upto something, trying to build up someone’s finger print and retina, someone who works at NCL, there is obviously something fishy, definitely.

But today is not the day to think of all this, who knows what I might do tomorrow, today it’s all about her. 

 “Why are you so quite today?” she asks me. “What are you thinking?” she further questions and I have absolutely nothing to say.

“I am thinking how beautiful you are” I lie, or maybe that’s the truth. She blushes and that dimple is out again, seriously, if I could I could just swim in it for like forever;

It’s getting late, it’s getting dark; our small talks are getting longer. That’s what love does to you, you start a small conversation and you end up creating a thesis of your own, a thesis which only two of you understand, an essay written only for two people in love. The inner jokes, become apparent and frequent, and suddenly you realize, somewhere in that conversation, you would want to spend your rest of the life.  

After tonight’s gym session, she has called me over to her place. This is the opportunity, I need to confide in her, I need to tell her the truth. John can curse me how much ever he wants, I will run away from him, I will take her with me, two of us will get away from this place and build our house together on some Himalayan hill station, she will paint, I will write, she will cook , I will buy the groceries. Fairytales, do exist, we will make it come true, I will tell her everything.

Few hours gone, and I am sitting in her balcony, feeling the cool breeze.

She gets me a coffee “hey stud, you seem off today.. never been to any girl’s appartment before?” she mocks me.

“Nervous?” she winks.

“Don’t worry, I didn’t call you for any action..” she mocks me further and we both are blushing. She has no idea what is in my mind.

I take the coffee mug from her hand and keep both the mugs down, holding her face, I make her sit down not taking my eyes off her for a second.

“Do you really think, I was nervous because of you and I being alone and to what physical potential this moment possess?”

“I don’t know, a girl calling you over at her place in the night, most boys would have thought the same” she says rolling her eyes.

“But I just called you for a company; I needed to spend time with you before I get my transfer to Delhi”

She was leaving, in two days, and I had to act soon.

“Honestly, been there done that. But with you, it seems all so different, you are the kind of person I want to spend nights watching stars twinkle” I pointed towards the sky and that exact moment a brightest star twinkled. She smiled. 

“That is not why I am nervous” 

“Then tell me, what’s wrong”  She held my hand and at that moment I should have been stronger, but it made me weak, it made me stutter, If I could only hold this hand a little longer.. If only.

Before there was her, before there was me,

Before there was sky, and the stars that seemed to be,

Before we kiss, before we make out, before we have a steamy hot sex.

Before we crumble, before we topple, before we have a night full of fight..

Before, I tell you the truth, before you feel betrayed,

O’ hear me out, hear me out for once,

There is always a moment before everything, and that moment is in the “before”

An uncertainty factor, prior to a certain outcome..

Before the betrayal, there we had a moment of truth and truce.

I could have told her, I should have told her , but I didn’t, I took the customized phone and took her selfie instead, focusing solely on her eyes.

Retina scan matched!!

The coffee which she made for me remained cold, I should have lifted that cup and drank from it; I used my finger print lifting tape instead.

 Finger print matched!!

And now I am walking in this thunderous rain. I don’t want to be a part of it, I never wanted to be a part of anything other than hers, but the moment has passed, before I could act… John in me has acted.